Sorry for the recent radio silence; I was very sick for the last few weeks. With our recent acceptance into Steam Greenlight, I think this is a good time for a progress update on the game and how it is going. While I am a bit hesitant to throw out numbers (the last 10% of game development can be 50% of the work, and numbers can be misleading), I think that transparency is one of the biggest advantages that indie game development has, so I’ll throw caution to the wind. At the moment internally, we are looking at:

90% of classes finished

96% of items finished

39% of item log entries finished

70% of stages finished, with only 30% functioning online

47% of monster logs finished

Small (~20%) of the final stage finished

So what does this mean? Why isn’t all that in the beta? Well, that’s what we’re here to talk about! Right now, the plan is to push for release, rather then create another beta build.Why?

We want to keep some things secret until final release! You guys deserve the best, and we still want things to be exciting when the game is launched.

This means not only big stuff (classes, items, etc) but also small things that will keep the game fresh (re-arranging item logs, etc)

Developing things for final release (like the final boss and stage) means that after we create it internally, we have to take it back out, which leads to longer development time and potential bugs

The time to develop and maintain a stable beta build is about 2 weeks. Those 90% classes and 96% items haven’t been fully tested, so they can’t just be thrown into a build. That means that the release date is pushed back 2 weeks per beta update. Since we are so close to release, time spent bug fixing and stabilizing a beta build could be time spent bug fixing and stabilizing a final release, especially when the two are so close together.

Our vision of the game isn’t like some other indie games; we don’t plan on keeping the beta going for an extended period of time, but would rather launch the game for everyone to play. Without a proper launch goal in mind, development could drag on for a very long time, with features creeping in. While we aren’t quite comfortable with saying a release date (especially with move-in to an apartment and college starting, yuck), we will post one as soon as we can.

In summation, I think that rather then launching a beta update, we could launch the final game. If you feel otherwise, feel free to post on the forums. We read those; trust me! I know a lot of people may prefer a beta update, and I hope you guys understand why we are choosing this route.

3 thoughts on “Risk of Rain: Progress Update”

Secondly, I would like to make my case for one last beta build. I understand that the desire to keep some things secret is strong, but I would like to point out how many of the bugs that have been fixed so far have been found not by you devs, but by the beta community. Along with the numerous suggestions and debates about particular classes, I feel that leaving the last two as complete unknowns could be a major error for balancing.

Let me put it this way, yes that time developing a beta build could be put towards final release, but what about all that time you devs will have to spend testing it all yourself? If you really want to keep secrets, you could create a smaller, private beta group (re-naming preferable, to avoid confusion about people’s pre-order agreement), and put a legal footnote denying the group from sharing spoilers.

My main point is that, without some sort of beta group, bug finding will be a major time sink, and its possible that some balance issues could make it to post-release.

It seems hilarious that over on the Starbound Forum people are clamouring at every update to ask them to release the Starbound Beta early and saying that if they do people will be satisfied.

Meanwhile over here there have been several Beta builds and, you guessed it, someone’s not satisfied. The gap between Beta and Build would be the same as the gap between beta and Beta. Yet STILL someone’s not satisfied. Still someone thinks they know better and more than the devs actually building the game.

Draken09 I see your logic. The problem is you make assumptions. I’m betting that when they make the release it WILL be tested before release (would be a bit mad not to having done all those Betas before) by a small team of testers, which probably won’t include you (not saying this to be nasty, just that it’s likely to be known testers, devs, and friends of devs).

Some time after release I’ll buy it (or I might preorder before release but I won’t be paying extra for the Beta. It’s too rich for my wallet).

I appreciate the discussion, but the devs have pretty much settled on a course of action in the forums. (Unfortunately I don’t remember it quite well enough from memory to accurately recount, and I don’t have the time to look it up.) However, I would appreciate it if you would leave out the mild personal comments.

On another note, apparently the comments here are supposed to be shut off, yet we made it through. O.o